WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.—‘80s XXX star and AVN Hall of Fame inductee Tiffany Clark has passed away after a long bout with cancer. She died on May 1 and was 65.
A member of the exclusive circle of Golden Age stars, Clark was married to legendary adult director Fred Lincoln during the heady days of pre-Giuliani New York and “porno chic,” when a lot of adult movie production still took place in New York City.
As portrayed in popular HBO series The Deuce, X-rated theaters lined Times Square, and notorious live venues like the Hellfire Club, Show World and the Melody Burlesk (later the Harmony Burlesque) theater lit the night with garish, throbbing neon displays. Clark had been a popular dancer at the Melody early in her career.
A native Los Angeleno, she made her feature film debut in 1979, in Pink Champagne, for Cal Vista, before moving East. The movie’s cast, with more than 30 performers, included several distinguished stars of the era including Lisa De Leeuw, Jon Steele, John Stagliano and Ron Jeremy.
“Tiffany was one of my many roommates during my time in the industry,” classic XXX star Long Jeanne Silver told AVN. “I lived with her and Fred Lincoln and various others during that era. Tiffany was always one to welcome and open her home in time of need. She always had that nurturing instinct that really served her well in her later years.
“She loved life and had a few ups and downs, including a short prison stay. Tiffany and Fred also ran Plato's Retreat for a short time until it closed. I worked with Tiffany on a few films and we always had such a great time because she brought such positive energy,” Silver, who now lives in Arizona, remembered.
“We had a time that we lost touch but later, after we both grew older, we reconnected. Tiffany had married the love of her life Barry Kalfin and started her own family. Sadly, she ended up battling breast cancer, then brain and finally pancreatic cancer. Tiffany fought harder than anyone I know to not leave her husband and family—sadly, cancer won. I'll miss our chats and sharing our old age woes, something we constantly laughed about,” she said.
In New York, Clark became a popular performer on the underground scene and working on projects with Lincoln. As mentioned by Silver, the couple operated world-famous swinger’s club Plato’s Retreat for a short time.
“I am heartbroken at the loss of Tiffany Clark,” said ‘80s star Amber Lynn. “I worked with her in the movies Shaking Up and Cocktails in New York in 1985. She took me home as a birthday gift for her husband Fred Lincoln one night and her, Fred and Jamie [Gillis] and I couples-dated to the infamous Plato’s Retreat and frequented the Hellfire Club NYC. She is an amazing woman, and a legendary performer who will he missed greatly. May she rest in power.”
Credited with a little more than 50 adult film roles (and featured in many compilations), Clark starred in California Girls (1980), Ballgame (1980), Pandora's Mirror (1981), Liquid Assets (1982), Sexcapades (1983), Mascara (1983) and Scoundrels (1982), among others. Notably, director Cecil Howard won the AVN Award for Best Director—Film, in 1984, for Scoundrels.
Clark hit a career high note, also in 1984, when she was awarded three AVN Awards: Best Supporting Actress in a Film, Best Couples Sex Scene in a Film (with Michael Bruce), and Best Sex Scene Coupling in a Film, for her work in Hot Dreams (1983), from Caballero Home Video.
Her only directing credit was for Hot Rockers (1985), for IVF, starring Sharon Kane.
Lincoln, who had started in the late 1960s as a talent booker for adult venue Show World and was eventually credited with more than 400 adult titles, preceded Clark in death, in 2013.
At the time, AVN founder Paul Fishbein said, “The very first CES show that AVN went to in 1984, my very first porn event was Fred Lincoln's wedding to Tiffany Clark at the Imperial Palace hotel. I was so impressed that I was invited to Fred Lincoln's wedding, and I thought, 'I made it in Hollywood!' This was Vegas circa '84 and Fred was just so nice and inviting and 'Welcome to my wedding.'”
The wedding “made the cover of the July 1984 issue of Adam magazine, but less than five years later, and after the birth of a son, Lincoln divorced Clark and married Patty Rhodes,” late AVN editor Mark Kernes wrote. Clark retired from her adult career following the divorce from Lincoln.
In an unpublished video interview with Clark, on the occasion of her induction to the AVN Hall of Fame, EMM Report’s Dominic Acerra asked her about post-industry life, in the nearly six years since she’d left performing. Speaking candidly, Clark revealed that since her departure, she had become sober and was married with two children and one “on the way.” She and her husband owned a film distribution business.
She also commented on enjoying her adult career and her decision to audition for the first time after seeing an ad for nude models in an L.A. newspaper. Motivated by a combination of boredom and sexual frustration, Clark found herself in the office of late industry figure Bill Margold, then a talent agent, who she said tried his best to talk her out of getting into the industry. She remembered that his stern, hours-long warning only made her want to be to be in the movies more.
Eventually, she performed in her first scene with Ron Jeremy, in a film loop or “stag film,” as they were then called. Clark went on to recount a list of memorable co-stars, including Harry Reems, Veronica Hart, Kelly Nichols and Sharon Mitchell, as well as how Deep Throat director Gerard Damiano had introduced her to her ex-husband Lincoln.
“When I was in the business then, it was family,” Clark said. “It was a family, everyone was friends, we all looked out for each other ... we were really close, we really tried to help each other and we cared about somebody else.”
She also remembered the support received from Lincoln and fellow industry members through her incarceration and sobriety, adding that being sober allowed for the “best days” of her life and having her children. Clark said she had no regrets, except for the issues caused by addiction.
Clark’s husband of 36 years, Barry Kalfin, posted to his Facebook page on Friday to announce his wife’s passing, writing, “On today, May 1, 2026, the world lost one of the greatest people that ever walked the Earth.”
She is survived by Kalfin and seven children, whom she raised.
A GoFundMe campaign has been organized to assist with final expenses, and a memorial service has been scheduled for May 10, in Lake Worth Beach, Florida.
Photo courtesy of Long Jeanne Silver.
